Highs & Lows

HIGHS

GREG OSTERTAG: The Utah Jazz center donated a kidney to his younger sister. What more needs to be said than this: Way to go, big guy.

THE DOMINATOR: Goaltender Dominick Hasek, in his 12th NHL season and only one with the Red Wings, retires to the Czech Republic as a Stanley Cup champion. Career goals-against averages of 2.23 in the regular season and 2.03 in the playoffs with the Blackhawks, Sabres and Red Wings, six Vezina trophies as the league's best goaltender and two Hart trophies as its MVP stamped him as a Hall of Famer long before he won the only trophy he ever coveted.

BRAZIL VS. GERMANY: After the raft of underdog upsets, it is fitting that today's World Cup title match involves two teams with seven championships between them and each making its seventh trip to the finals. Brazil, the only four-time champion, has never played Germany in the tournament.

LOWS

DEATH OF DARRYL KILE: The loss of anyone so young, talented and well-liked is a tragedy. That so many fans and members of the media leaped to the unfounded conclusion that drug use might have been instrumental in the death of the 33-year-old Cardinals' pitcher is shameful and, given the state of sports today, logical.

ESPN2: The network that does so well televising the NFL draft should have used some of the same techniques on the NHL. Instead, it offered no "crawl" showing the draft order and players selected and pictures sometimes didn't match the announcers words. We've come to expect more.

BCS: The good news: The Bowl Championship Series eliminated one poll in the convoluted system determining the two teams that play for college football's mythical national title. The bad news: It kept the remaining seven.